I think number one is a little odd though. I'm for phasing out all tax deductions, that I own a house and have children is a stupid reason for me to pay less taxes than someone else who makes as much as I do. To that point though, simply isolating state/local tax reductions is odd, and using the stupid "over 10 years" claim makes me want to kick the dog. He's also not entirely correct, like in WA where we do not have an income tax to deduct, for some years (it changes as tax policy changes) we can deduct sales tax in its place. His broader point is that we need to increase taxes overall (aka more revenue) and I'd agree with that to an extent.

I'm all for reducing military spending, significantly.I'm all for less punishment of "victimless crimes".I'm all for reducing the effect of special interests. The trick here is how to accomplish that. He seems to be advocating that it can be accomplished by reducing subsidies, which I'm in favor of, but I think that's a pretty small step. You reduce it drastically by reducing the power that such a small group of people has to influence corporations on a global scale, which can be accomplished by transitioning that power to the state/local levels where it always should have been.

Fridmarr, if you were to move over here, to Denmark, you could probably find some poeple agree ing with you in the conservative party, but to a large degree, what you propose and want over the course of what I've read of you in thsi thread, you would be more at home on the left, with us from the socialists people's party.

I don't really disagree with the overall sentiment of the article, but that big quote near the top seems fishy. Saying that fundamentalist views aren't mainstream by comparing them to polls of... Catholics?

The article itself I can't see really doing much more than preaching to the choir - a number of the things talked about (like belief in the geocentric model of the universe) most readers would find hard to believe were held as true by an influential number of people.

DISCLAIMER---------------------------------------------------------------------I am commenting, because Klaud asked for thoughts. I'm not interested in some long and drawn out argument where you tell me I'm wrong, and try to show me why. I've come to the conclusion that my opinion, is based on my life experiences, growing up in the very thing that this article is talking about. I'm biased. I will willingly, and openly admit my bias about it as someone who grew up in some of the scariest circles of the fundamentalist Christian Movement, during some of it's darkest times.

When I speak about Christianity, and my distaste, I'm not saying that I hate you. I'm not saying that I hate your religion. Unless, you are a fundamentalist. Then, Yes. I hate your religion. But I don't hate you.

I'm willing to have civil conversation about my opinions, but so help me, if this turns into the type of shit that it has in the past, I'm done. ---------------------------------------------------------------------END OF DISCLAIMER

It echos my sentiments of the fundamentalist Christian movement, both in, and out of the political arena.

There is a large push in fundamental churches to create derision between them, and everyone else. Even other branches of Christianity that differ from their own. It's one of the biggest reasons I hold the belief that Catholicism, and Fundamental Christianity are in fact two different religions, in a similar manner that there is a difference of religion between Jewish, Muslim, and Catholicism/Christianity. We've been over the topic before, and I'm not really interested in hashing it out again. But Understand that from a fundamentalist point of view, you are wrong. They are right. You're going to hell. They are not. I'm willing to concede that at a technical level, they are "the same", but this isn't something you can be technical about. To me, there is a large enough divide in the doctrines, and ideologies of the evangelical/pentacostal - fundamentalist movement, that it is it's very own religion.

Fundamentalists truly believe that Secular is bad. Wrong. Immoral. The direct influence of Satan on Earth. They have set upon themselves an impossible standard to live by, and they build upon this ideology, by segregation of other religious points of view.

An AnecdoteAs a child, there was a wildly popular christian singer. Amy Grant. When I was around 10, she decided to "Go Secular". The Church held a party, in which they took all of their Amy Grant items; Shirts, Tapes, Records, Posters, and had a bonfire. She was essentially banned and blacklisted. End Anecdote

After living through it, and looking back at it, I just don't understand how they can be so blindly fanatical to the point that their doctrine ends up being contradictory. As I said in a PM with someone, they have set upon themselves the desire to live closely to God, and it isn't enough to be saved. There is no "Well, I'm saved, and I'm going to Heaven." If you stray, you will go to Hell. How do you stray? Sin. But you sin every day. If I Fight with my wife, and Sin, by disrespecting her, leave the house, get in a car, and die in an accident, by their own standard, I've died a sinner, and the only place for me, is Hell.

You sin with your mind, and not just your actions. And it will send you to hell. How do you stay saved? No one has ever answered that question to me. I was "saved" and "Baptized" not only by water, but in the Holy Spirit (Which IMO is a sort of group think induced something) by the time i was 14. Am I saved forever? Am I a sinner because of what has happened in my life since? Am I a sinner, because I believe that if God is real, I'm probably pretty unhappy with him for what he allows done in his name without smacking some sense into people?

And what I've described, is what I see this playing out in politics. I'm not quite sure why the fundamentalist movement has risen to the top in the political atmosphere. I somewhat believe that because the message is so divisive, that it ends up with the most airplay.

And here is where I say something some may disagree with.

But, the reality (at least to me) is that the type of Christianity I see play out in our political arena feels closer to WBC doctrine than the doctrine of non fundamentalist, and even non evangelical Christianity, Especially in the younger demographics. They may not cheer at the chaos and devastation and call it the "wrath of God", but on moral issues, they are close.

And it sickens me to see it. As I grew older, and realized that I truly felt at odds with the faith of those around me, I came to a lot of the same conclusions as this article does. The biggest being the underlying sentiment that disagreement isn't a disagreement with a person or even with doctrine. It's a direct attack on God. The more I see that happens with the fundamentalist movement, The more that I'm wary of it. I see parallels in their beliefs, and the dreaded "Sharia Law" of Fundamentalist Islam that they claim to so vehemently despise. Their worldview and political ideology has shifted. They don't want a conservative voice. They want a theocracy. Any anyone who is against them, is the enemy.

Merit pay is well and good, but it is pretty much impossible for some idiot legislator to draw up a system that isn't completely ass backwards when it comes to how one goes about measuring performance, or implementing a metric that doesn't lead to system gaming and horrible results. More legislation is almost never the answer.

fuzzygeek wrote:Merit pay is well and good, but it is pretty much impossible for some idiot legislator to draw up a system that isn't completely ass backwards when it comes to how one goes about measuring performance, or implementing a metric that doesn't lead to system gaming and horrible results. More legislation is almost never the answer.

Well, the problem with the system in florida is, as the article states:

Kim Cook, one of the plaintiffs, teaches at W.W. Irby Elementary in Alachua, which has students in pre-K-to-second grade. Cook was her school's "Teacher of the Year" last year, the lawsuit noted.

The test-score portion of her evaluation was based on the work of fourth- and fifth-grade students at nearby Alachua Elementary. When they showed less than expected growth, her initial evaluation pegged her as "unsatisfactory."

Bethann Brooks, another plaintiff, is a health-science teacher at Central High School in Brooksville who works mostly with older students who want to be nursing assistants. Her evaluation was based partly on ninth- and 10th-graders' reading test scores. " I don't teach most of those students," she said a telephone call with reporters. "And those I do teach are enrolled in my health–science-related classes."

Your evaluation as a teacher depends on kids from other schools, that are on other grades, and on subjects not related to yours. WTF.

As for polygamy. I don't care really. After my brush with marriage, in which it failed right before getting married, thank the FSM... I don't think I'd want a wife, let alone two.

From a purely legal viewpoint, legalizing polygamy, polyandry or any other kind of marriage with more than two partners has one major problem that legalizing gay marriage doesn't have: namely, divorce. With gay marriage, deciding who gets to keep which property and who gets the custody of the children is just as simple (if painful) as with straight marriage. With polygamy, you'd need to rewrite the entire procedure from scratch, and it would be far more complicated.

I'm not sure exactly how valid this argument is, but I'd like to mention it anyway:

It's unlikely that polygamy/polyandry will be balanced, as in, there will be about as many polygamy unions as polyandry unions. (On the surface it seems as if polygamy would be the norm in the west, but I'm not really sure about that.) This would then lead to many people not being able to find a spouse (as they're all "taken"), which could concievably lead to unrest in society. (Some people have theorized that this is already happening in muslim countries - but I've seen nothing but speculation about it.) A counter-argument would be that there are several other factors that could create such "surplus" people - one-child policy of china combined with a lower regard for girls has already created a not insignificant surplus of chinese males, and you see similar trends in India. You also have a lot of people in the west who fail at finding spouses, and they haven't done much beyond raging on the internet - but then they'd mostly blame themselves for failing to attract a wife, instead of blaming others for stealing all the women.

This is all speculation really, but it brings me to my point: Gay marriage is undoubtedly a stabilizing factor on society. "Defense of marriage"-people love to talk about how many benefits there are for married people, they just fail to bring any valid arguments for why this applies to heterosexual couples and not homosexual couples. So the evidence seems to indicate that allowing more people to marry is a net benefit to society. Polygamy/polyandry matches may bring similar benefits, but it also may bring its share of problems.

One thing polygamy (is polyandry the version where one woman has more than one husband?) would do in the world of today - give more time and less stress to households that took advantage of the possibility.

Legally, of course, there is nothing prebventing multiple adult households - its a perception issue (and then there is the "can only marry one of them, so can't marry any"/"secondary wife/husband" issues that stems from the lack of legal union) - for instance if my finacee and I wanted another man or woman in our houshold, there is nothing legally stopping us form doing so - and in regards to custody it would, in the case of 2+ women, always be the borth mother and the father of record that has custody - which could create issues of course. In regards to custody in a multiple man situation, thats a bit more tircky, though it could be decided by the involved parties by declaration, though shared custody would be better for the children involved.

As to the divorce issues. Dividing up ownership would be relatively easy under normal rules with a bit of common sense - if 1 person wants to exit the union, they quite simply get 1 share of any commonly owned property (including land, house and chattel). Custody would be a bit trickyer if the exiting spouse was a birthparent, as it then becomes a birthparents rights versus the good of the child (which could be one and the same, but could also be in opposition) - though that can still be the case today, as unless both birthparents are exiting, the union would sitll have 1 birth parent in it.

In reality, I think the biggest hurdle to a functioning polygamic legal union, would be opposition from the same groups that generally oppose gay unions, on the same grounds - either based in religion or personal philosophy, that its "unnatural" or some other reason.

Looking at the knowledge we have from the animal kingdom - humans developed as polygamous originally, with males having more than 1 female (males are generally larger than females) - in the animal kingdom that is usually a very distict sign that the larger gender is dominantly polygamous.

From a purely legal viewpoint, legalizing polygamy, polyandry or any other kind of marriage with more than two partners has one major problem that legalizing gay marriage doesn't have: namely, divorce. With gay marriage, deciding who gets to keep which property and who gets the custody of the children is just as simple (if painful) as with straight marriage. With polygamy, you'd need to rewrite the entire procedure from scratch, and it would be far more complicated.

I don't think that's a big deal. We have plenty of multi party property disputes to draw from.

I really don't care either way but there is no judicial reason to legalize it. People are polygamists by choice and they have the same exact legal protections (the ability to marry one person) as everyone else. So it would only be legalized through the legislative process, which means it's going to have to become much more popular than it currently is.

I actually don't have any qualms about polygamy/polyandry. I would draw the line in the sand where the article mentions - legal-aged, consenting adults, but other than that, I can't see any real reason to prevent it. Sure, some laws in regards to taxes or divorce might have to be reinterpreted (through courts or legislation) to encompass a multiple spouse household... but just because something is difficult doesn't mean it's something that shouldn't be done.

Fridmarr wrote:People are polygamists by choice and they have the same exact legal protections (the ability to marry one person) as everyone else.

Is this substantially different from people arguing that the Equal Protection clause isn't applicable in Same Sex Marriage because gay people also have the right to marry someone of the opposite gender?

As far as divorce/inheritance determinations: that's what probate courts are for.

Also yes I intended to include polyandry in the original post. I'm curious as to why the original editorial singled out polygamy.

No there isn't a judicial reason to make it illegal, but that has no relevance, because the legislative branch has already done that. The only judicial concern then becomes whether or not there is reason for the judicial branch to overrule the legislative process. In this case, there is isn't any that I can see.

Within our current system (and I say that so we don't get spun out of control on a discussion of rights and choices), it can easily be considered different if the court decides that homosexuality is not a choice. If the court does not take that stance, then our current marriage laws would not contradict the equal protection clause. The court could easily rule that way which effectively returns gay marriage to legislatures. Though I don't think that's the issue they are reviewing anyhow.I don't see an equivalent with polygamy however.

The only way I see legalized polygamy it's through legislative action. And in truth gay marriage will also probably follow that path.

fuzzygeek wrote:I don't see this as being a useful argument. Am I missing something?

I tried to make the argument for why it could be in my post (TLDR version: people get angry when somebody hogs all the women/men.) I'm not sure how great the effect is, if it has any at all, but I've seen the argument made.

Counter to that is that nobody else has any say in what consenting adults get up to.

In his novel Friday, Robert Heinlein envisaged a world in which family units were formed from multiple men and women all married to one another and living together, sharing in the duties of earning money, raising children, etc.

While an interesting idea, I doubt very much it would work in practice.

The concept of poly marriage exists in many places in the world, and I don't have any particular issue with it provided it isn't exploitive. It's certainly not for me, however.

"Reinhart and Rogoff, however, say their conclusion that there is a correlation between high debt and slow growth still holds."Yeah, but their results actually had that growth as negative, rather than just slowing down as the corrected spreadsheet now shows.

-0.1 to 2.2 growth is quite a difference, specially on a global scale.